


Of The Past and The Present

by gigaparsec



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2017-12-14 23:43:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/842795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigaparsec/pseuds/gigaparsec
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mabel travels back to Oregon, meets an old rival, and unearths new, more sinister secrets about Gravity Falls at her new college.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When Mabel arrived at the playground, she was genuinely surprised to see that the park was completely desolate except for her. She knew that the place was old, and a bit run-down, and in the years Mabel had been gone newer, shinier playgrounds had been popped up around town, but it was such a nice summer day and this particular playground was obviously still the best. The plastic tops of the slides were shaped like castles, and there were leprechauns and fairies and merpeople painted onto the sides of the wooden towers and the place had the highest monkey bars _ever_ \- so high they probably broke twelve safety regulations and it was sort of hard not to imagine some overprotective soccer mom writing the city to complain about how they posed a 'potential danger,' but they were so big and so high that if you went on them and closed your eyes, it felt like mountain climbing.

But when Mabel looked at the monkey bars, they didn't seem as high as she remembered. She didn't try to go on them.

The wind blew in her hair, and she sat down on one of the big kid swings and closed her eyes, wrapping her fingers around the metal chains. When she breathed in, the park smelled like pine and paint. It smelled like being a kid again.

It smelled like running around the Darville park, trying to tag her brother Dipper, who seemed wholly uninterested in her game but still played along with her anyway, partly because their mom was watching and partly because Dipper was Dipper.

It smelled like fourth grade, or some day in fifth grade, and she couldn't remember the date of it but she could remember that it was spring and it was one of the last days with her dad, and he took her to the park and Mabel pouted all the way there because at this point the park was almost baby stuff but she stopped pouting when he started pushing her on the swings and she screamed like there was no tomorrow.

It smelled like her first day of middle school, when she was wearing those scratchy pants and that stupid lace-y top that her mom had been picked out for her and she was so nervous that she almost threw up at lunch (the fact that it was spaghetti day at the cafeteria and Mabel had decided a few days before she was too cool for brown-bagged lunches might have also been responsible for that) and afterward instead of going straight home she had gotten off of the bus at the playground and stared at it and thought to herself "goodbye".

She wished that she hadn't said goodbye to it so soon. Middle school was not the time to say goodbye. That time was now.

Mabel traced abstract shapes in the wood chips with the toe of her shoe. The park was silent, except for the sound of wind blowing and the wind chimes of a house in the distance. Mabel didn't like it. She wished that there were children here, running around and being loud and make believing that they were cats (like Mabel used to) or detectives (like Dipper used to) or something else entirely while the mothers and the fathers talked on their phones and attempted to watch their screaming children and rolled their eyes when kids ran by without realizing that those kids were in different, magical world.

She closed her eyes without a real reason, waiting for something to break the silence. The phone in her skirt pocket complied about 2 minutes later.

She dug in for it and tapped the power button. Her screen showcased a preview of a text from Dipper:

"Where are you? Mom wants us to"

She didn't even bother clicking through the full message. Mabel knew it was time to go.

\- - - - -

The park was a very short walk from Mabel's house, but when she got there, Dipper was already pacing their front porch.

"Where in God's name have you been?" Dipper demanded as soon as she came within earshot. He raised his wrist and pointed to his watch angrily. "We have less than an hour to load your car, Mabel! Mom and Grunkle Stan have been waiting for at least thirty minutes and I'm pretty sure Mom is in there crying right now and I'm trying to comfort her but it is HARD, Mabel, it is hard because my sister decided to go AWOL on one of the most important days of her lives to run off to wherever the hell -"

"I was at the park," Mabel said.

Dipper blinked. "The park."

"Do you know that park we used to go to all the time when we were kids? The one with the really awesome wood structure and the super high monkey bars and the giant Newton's cradle that you used to be obsessed with?"

Dipper's brows furrowed. "Why were you _there_?"

"Because it felt right?" she offered, knowing that attempting to make Dipper understand would probably be futile.

Dipper's expression did not change.

Mabel sighed. "Haven't you ever...isn't there anywhere in this town that you just felt like you had to say goodbye to? Like your bedroom or a classroom at school or something? And you go in when it's all empty and silent except it doesn't feel empty to you, it feels like the silence is full of memories, and you just....you need to see it one last time before you go?"

She was almost sure she could see a flicker of recognition in Dipper's eyes. But as soon as it was there, it was gone, and he turned and slammed the screen door on his way back into the house.

There was a time when her brother would have known what she was talking about. Dipper used to understand things like that - understand that sometimes you have to do what your feelings are telling you to do without any logic backing you up. She had seen him do just that during that one summer they spent in Gravity Falls.

But that was years ago. They were just kids then. They had believed they saw monsters and magic in the forest of Gravity Falls, Oregon, but when they got home, Dipper had become a different person. He started blathering on about colleges and grades non-stop until the day they had graduated. Dipper was a smart boy - his GPA proved as much - but sometimes Mabel wondered if he had forgotten how to use those smarts in his little world of bubble sheets and study guides. 

Mabel and Dipper didn't talk about that summer. Not very much, anyway. It was just a stupid summer in a stupid town when they were stupid twelve year olds. But it hadn't really left Mabel, and Mabel could tell that it hadn't really left Dipper, either, no matter how much he pretended it had.

And now Dipper was going off to the University of Washington (Honors Program, of course) and Mabel was going off to a small little private college in Oregon called Hubbard College. Mabel's mother was happy for both twins, but Dipper was not only brooding over the fact that he was waitlisted at Stanford, but utterly confused at Mabel's college choice. He was concerned with not only how small it was and the lack of prestige and publicity (until Mabel applied, neither of the twins had heard about it) but the fact that the admissions department was tripping over its own feet to get Mabel to attend. Mabel - who was an admittedly below average student, who hadn't done many extracurriculars outside of yearbook staffing and newspaper editing - had received a scholarship that covered almost full tuition, which was the main reason Mabel had decided to go. The fact that it was about a 30 minute drive from Gravity Falls, Oregon might have played into her decision a little bit as well.

Mabel had begged Dipper to apply, too, especially after it became evident that Mabel was far below U of W's admission standards, but he had refused. And now he and Mabel were going to entirely different colleges in entirely different states, after living underneath the same roof for their entire life. And Dipper was acting surprisingly nonchalant about it - which, if Mabel was being honest with herself, hurt a little bit.

Before Dipper could complete his dramatic drama queen storm out, Mabel pulled open the screen door and grabbed his wrist. "Dipper. Wait."

Dipper turned around to look at Mabel's hand on his wrist, and then at Mabel. "What do you need now, Mabel?" he huffed. 

Mabel bit her lip and was surprised to find her eyes becoming a little teary. "Can we not do this?" she asked weakly.

Dipper's annoyed expression softened a little bit once he heard the tone of Mabel's voice. "Not do what?"

"In a few minutes I'm going to load my bags and get into one car and tomorrow you're going to load your bags and get into another and then we're going to go in different directions and never live with each other even again so can you please not be mad at me? Not today. Not on our very last day." 

Dipper seemed to process that for a few seconds, then gently pulled his hand out of Mabel's grasp. "Come on, man," he said comfortingly. "You don't need to cry right now."

Mabel gave him a little smile. "I'm not going to, bro."

There was a brief silence in which both twins weren't sure if they should walk into the kitchen or stay standing by the staircase. Then, Mabel said, "I'm really going to miss you."

To her surprise, Dipper pulled her into a hug. Not an awkward sibling hug, either - a genuine brohug. "Promise me you'll be safe at college? I worry about you," Dipper said.

"Oh my God, Dipper. When did you become a middle-aged mother?" Mabel laughed.

"Come on, Mabel. Please? Just...be careful. Don't go out with people you've just met. Don't accept drinks from a stranger. Don't...just....you know. I'm not going to be there to have your back any more."

"I will," Mabel said. "Can you promise me something?"

"What?"

"I know you're disappointing that nothing ever came of the waitlist at Stanford," Mabel started. "Just - and I say this with as much love as I can - try not to be such a tightass, alright? This is college. You need to branch out. Make friends. Studying's all well and good, but...find someone to study _with_ , okay?"

Dipper was silent for a moment. He dropped his arms from Mabel's shoulders, stepped away, and looked her in the eye. "Yeah," he said. "I can try that." He nodded a bit. "You'll call me, right?"

"You know I will, broseph."

He smiled. Mabel smiled back.

Then Dipper turned and walked into the kitchen, and Mabel followed suit.

\- - - - -

The second she stepped into the room, she found herself engulfed in a crushing hug from her weeping mother. "Oh my God," Mabel heard her sob out. "My kids are going off to college!"

Mabel did her best to wiggle her arms out from her mother's crushing embrace and wrap them around her mom's shoulders. "It's okay, Mom," Mabel reassured her, gasping a little bit for air. "I'll call you. I'll text you. I'll text you every single day, I promise."

Her mother nodded, and then moved on to give the same tear-filled bone-crushing hug to Dipper.

Mabel glanced over at the kitchen table and was surprised to see Grunkle Stan sitting there, chewing away at one of their mother's chocolate chip cookies. She remembered Dipper mentioning that he had showed up, it wasn't like their great uncle to show up at the kind of events and gatherings where people cried and stuff, and considering he was from their dad's side of the family, it was unusual for their mother to have invited him, anyway. In fact, Mabel couldn't recall meeting him face-to-face ever since she left Gravity Falls.

"Grunkle Stan?" Mabel tried to feign enthusiasm. "What are you, uh, doing here?"

Grunkle Stan swallowed a huge chunk of his cookie. "There's my Mabel!" he yelled, and Mabel thought he was going to get up and hug her, but he obviously had no interest in leaving his chair or his cookie. "Guess which Grunkle is going to be driving you to your fancy new _col-lege_?"

Mabel turned to her mother. "Are you saying that _Grunkle Stan_ is helping me move in to my dorm room?"

Her mother suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Well..."

"You betcha, kid!" Grunkle Stan let out a laugh and tossed the rest of the cookie into his mouth. "It was your mother's idea. You know, this fancy Hubba Bubba place being so close to Gravity Falls. You can come over and visit the Shack all the time now! So whatsay us four stop our yapping and we all hit the road?"

Mabel exchanged glances with Dipper, then with her mother. "Um..." she started hesitantly, not sure of what else she could say.

"Come on, kiddo!" he said, standing up. "Let's go get your bags."

Mabel stood frozen in the kitchen for a second. Then she glanced at the kitchen wall, blinked rapidly a few times for good measure, and turned to follow her great uncle.


	2. Chapter 2

"Do you want me to stay and help you unpack?"

"No."

"Do you want me to stay and walk around campus with you?"

"No."

"Do you want me to stay and help you find your lecture halls?"

"Mom."

"Do you want me to maybe run to the dining hall and eat one more -"

"Mom," Mabel sighed. Stan, Mabel, and her mother had finished the backbreaking job of hauling Mabel's personal possessions into the cramped little dorm room at the very least half an hour ago, but her mother had completely refused to leave. She kept finding little excuses to stay; smoothing out Mabel's bed sheets, checking (and double and triple checking) Mabel's boxes to make sure that "there was nothing left behind at home", even trying to reminisce about things Mabel did when she was younger with Grunkle Stan, who had been standing in the corner of her room awkwardly the entire time. Mabel felt like a little bit of the jerk, but she had been trying to encourage, coerce, and even (as subtly as she could) physically force her mother out of her door for what felt like forever, and goodness gracious, she would feel happy to be alone.

"Mom," Mabel said. "Don't you think it's time to go? You know..." She started, searching for an excuse. "My roommate could show up at any second. Aaaaaaaaaand I'm sure Stan is probably _really_ eager to get back home," she said, looking at her great uncle for support.

By the grace of a higher power, Grunkle Stan seemed to understand and started to nod along with Mabel. "Come on, Jen. It's time to get going. Time to get going."

Her mother's bottom lip trembled, and for a very brief second Mabel worried that she was going to have a crying fit on the floor of her dorm room. Quickly, however, her mother seemed to compose herself.

"Alright." She wrapped her arms around Mabel. "Love you, Mabel Pie. You'll call me?

"Every single day. Scout's honor," Mabel assured her, lifting her fingers. "Former Girl Scout's honor, anyway."

Her mother smiled and squeezed her one more time. "Stan, do you have anything you want to say to Mabel before you go?"

Mabel expected something either incredibly terse or slightly inappropriate, but to her surprise, Grunkle Stan walked over to her and laid a hand on her shoulder. "The Mystery Shack is just a half an hour from here, kiddo. If you need anything..."

Mabel stared up at him. Grunkle Stan avoided her eye contact and took his hand off of her shoulder. "Well, good luck, kiddo."

"Love you, Mabel," her mom whispered. And Mabel watched as she and Grunkle Stan left the room together.

Mabel took a deep breath and collapsed on the bed. "Hooooooooooooly shit," she whispered. She knew that getting a dorm room wasn't anything like getting your first house or getting an apartment or whatever, but holy shit. Mabel Pines was 100 miles away from her old house, in a freaking Oregon forest, living on her own for the first time.

As on your own as you can be living in a building full of college freshmen, at the very least.

Her very first instinct was to text dipper.

_"finally in room. mom is on her way home. i think she's dropping off stan first. mabel pines is ON HER OWN BABY"_

She pressed send, then paused to send a follow up text.

_"by the way, what are you doing?"_

She waited mere seconds before the reply came.

_"Dang. Congrats, Mabel! Aren't you sad? (I was *trying* to read, by the way)"_

Mabel sighed inwardly. His last full day in his childhood town and he wanted to sit inside his house and read. Typical Dipper.

_"reading? seriously? don't you want to say a last-minute romantic goodbye to gloria chan? maybe with a boombox under her window?"_

_"Oh my God Mabel SHUT UP."_ Mabel giggled to herself. Gloria had been in Dipper's "college app obsessed uber-nerd" group of friends at school. She was his date to prom - and also, to Mabel's knowledge, the first and only thing that came close to a 'girlfriend' that Dipper had ever had. (It was painfully evident that Gloria and Dipper did not like each other at all. Mabel had never seen the two look more uncomfortable than they did when Dipper was putting his arm around Gloria's shoulder in their prom pictures.)

A second text came. _"Shouldn't you be exploring campus or something right now instead of texting me?"_

_"idk man. it's a hell of a lot to take in."_

_"Mabel, your campus is one of the smallest campuses I have ever laid my eyes upon."_

_"not that! you'll understand tomorrow, you dork."_

_"Understand what?"_

_"idk. just, like, being on your own."_

_"You're not on your own. You're living in a dorm, Mabel."_

Mabel was about to text him back and tell him to shut up, but at that moment the door handle turned. Mabel shot a "gtg, roommate alert" at her brother as quickly as she possibly could, hoping she didn't seem rude, then glanced up at the girl in the door.

She had friended her roommate on facebook before she came to Hubbard, but the way she looked in her profile picture was nothing compared to how she looked in real life. For one thing, she was a good four inches taller than Mabel. If she had to wager a guess, Mabel would have said she was at least over 6'0 - 6'1? 6'2, maybe? The tank top and white jean shorts she was wearing showed that she was lean yet muscular, and her light brown limbs were toned in a way that screamed "athlete". She was attractive, Mabel noted, attractive enough to be a model - but from what she had gleaned about the girl from her facebook interests, she probably wasn't the type of person who had any interest in modeling.

Mabel stood up and smiled. "Hey! Stephanie, right?"

The girl - Stephanie - nodded and smiled back. "And you're Mabel, right?"

"Right." Stephanie extended her hand and, with the hand that wasn't holding her phone, Mabel shook it.

Mabel wasn't sure why Stephanie had been selected as her roommate. From stalking her on facebook and the brief messages the two had exchanged on the Internet, Mabel knew that Stephanie was a three-season athlete (soccer, basketball, tennis, although Mabel suspected she did more than that). Dipper had rambled on about the housing selection process at great length, and from what Mabel could gather, the housing staff usually put you with someone who shared your interests - which was laughable, because aside from competitive cheer, Mabel knew jack about anything sports-related. She couldn't bring herself to be bummed in the way that Dipper would be, though. Stephanie seemed really sweet, and she supposed that mattered a lot more than what Stephanie did in her free time.

A few seconds later, a women poked her head in the door - _Stephanie's mom,_ , Mabel thought. She gave her a smile and a small wave.

Her mother looked suprise to see Mabel. "Your roommate is already here?" she asked Stephanie. 

"Yeah," Stephanie said. "Mom, this is Mabel - Mabel, this is my mom."

Her mother smiled politely. "It's nice to meet you, Mabel."

"And you too," Mabel replied

"Your father and I can wait out in the hall if you need to talk to your roommate..." Stephanie's mother started, and Mabel realized that her mother was trying to stop herself from having the same crying fit that her mother almost had in front of her daughter's new roommate.

"It's fine, actually! I was just about to step out and explore the campus a little bit - that is, provided Stephanie doesn't mind me leaving so soon," Mabel said, glancing at Stephanie for her approval.

The girl nodded. "Sure. Have fun," she laughed.

Mabel politely brushed past Stephanie's mother and out into the hallway. She took a quick note of Stephanie's father - a tall, broad shouldered man, wearing a sports jacket and a screen printed t-shirt underneath. Mabel couldn't tell what it said, but she got a glance at the image beneath it - a dinosaur? Some sort of monster?

Mabel turned away to give Stephanie and her family some privacy and began the walk through her floor - which, at the present moment, had the bareness of a building not yet lived in, not yet worked in. There were open doors, through which Mabel was able to catch glances of kids and their parents moving in, and closed doors - Mabel assumed that those belonged to the kids who hadn't arrived yet.

In lieu of namecards, there were little whiteboards next to each door, containing the names of each person in each room. Mabel made a mental note to write her name on her whiteboard as she looked at the whiteboards that belonged to other rooms. She half expected to find the name of some kid from her high school, but she didn't recognize the name of anyone here. Westermann, Shields, Northwest, Taylor....

Mabel blinked. _Northwest._

The name didn't ring a bell - it set off an alarm. Mabel quickly took a few paces back and stared at the whiteboard. _Ivy George_ and _Pacifica Northwest _.__

__Northwest. Her brain stopped for a second. Northwest, Northwest, Northwest. Where did that name come from? She knew it from somewhere. She knew it from a long time ago..._ _

__Against her better judgement, Mabel knocked on the white door, hoping someone was inside. Within seconds, a girl opened it._ _

__All it took was one look at the girl's face to push Mabel to the verge of a heart attack._ _

__The girl was tiny, with wide eyes and long, feathery blonde hair. She was lacking the hoop earrings and the creamy purple eye makeup she had been wearing when Mabel last saw her, and if Mabel had seen her on the street, she wouldn't have given her a second thought, but she had the same face, the same hair, the same eyes._ _

__She remembered this girl. She had known her that summer in Gravity Falls. She had been an incessant bully - humiliating her for being 'silly' in front of a crowd of people, calling her a loser, comparing her to a pig, taking the Party Crown from her at Grunkle Stan's stupid dance. She had made Mabel lie awake late into the night, when Candy and Greta were gone and Dipper was already fast asleep, wondering if all those things that she said about Mabel were true. Mabel had spent so long trying not to let this girl get under her skin, but evidently she had failed, because Mabel still remembered her._ _

__And, Mabel realized, the girl remembered her, too._ _

__"Mabel?" she said._ _

__"Pacifica," she whispered._ _

__As quickly as she could, Mabel grabbed the door handle and slammed it shut._ _


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey you guys! Sorry I haven't been updating this thing very consistently. This summer has been kind of crazy, but I'm probably going to have more time to write once the school year starts. (If that sounds stupid and backwards and crazy, it's because it totally is.) Anyway, updates may be irregular, but I promise that they will keep happening, and if you feel so inclined, I hope you keep reading! ~

Mabel had done many, many dramatic storm offs in her life. She preformed her first when she was 3 and Dipper told her that she couldn't ask for a pink toy dump truck because "pink is a stupid color and dump trucks are for boys". (Dipper might have had a point, but Mabel couldn't help it if she thought dump trucks were the shit!) She did them with regularity in 3rd grade, when she had the meanest teacher in the school (one that gave out too much math homework and didn't believe in snacks). Her teenage years had been full of dramatic fights with her mother and her brother, at the end of which she would storm upstairs and slam the door of her room shut. Her family knew not to take it the wrong way, though - dramatic entrances and dramatic exits were just kind of Mabel's thing. Give her five or ten minutes, and she would come back down stairs and hug and make up and then the three of them would probably do something stupid and disgustingly family-ish like baking chocolate chip cookies together or whatever.

This storm-off, though, had been a particularly intense one - because there wasn't really a bedroom or women's restroom to storm off to after it was done. Mabel knew, on some level, that the "slam the door and run away" move was one that she might have overused from time to time, but she didn't _really_ realize how much she did it until she had no place else to go.

Tugging at her skirt and looking frantically around the unfamiliar hallway, Mabel's first instinct after she slammed Pacifica's door was to run back to her own room and lock herself in. She quickly realized that what was now 'her room' was occupied by her roommate's emotional family, and she couldn't very well barge in. _Shit,_ Mabel thought. _Shit shit shit shit shit._

She tried to walk away casually from the door, but her 'walk' quickly turned into a 'power walk' which turned into an outright, frantic sprint as she booked her way to the nearest set of stairs, then _down_ the nearest set of stairs, not stopping until she slammed the door of the front entrance to her dorm building.

The first coherent thought she was able to form was _I need to call Dipper._

Her phone was still in her hand. She breathed a silent thank you to the Mabel of five minutes ago for not trusting her roomie's weird family enough to leave her phone on her bed and dialed Dipper's number as fast as she could.

She waited one ring, her heart in her throat. She waited two rings. She waited three rings and her heart sank down to the bottom of he stomach. Mabel knew her brother well enough to know that he either answered his phone after three rings or he didn't answer at all.

Mabel took a deep breath and tried to collect herself. _Calm down, Mabel,_ she chided herself silently. _You're over reacting to this.You happened to run into someone that you remembered from a weird time in your life, and you freaked. You could go back in there. Open up her door. Apologize. You could act like nothing ever happened._

But things _did_ happen. It's not like she hadn't been teased before by her friends or Dipper or whatever - she acted dramatic, she wore kooky sweaters, she insisted on keeping a pet pig. But that was different - Mabel could tell those people were just teasing. Her friends and family liked her for who she was, odd mannerisms and all. Pacifica Northwest was the only person that had ever made Mabel feel honestly, geniunely bad about who she was, and what she said, and what she wore. Pacifica was the only person who ever scared Mabel into not talking.

The situation was so ridiculous that Mabel had to laugh. She couldn't believe she was letting the same girl who had intimidated her into not standing up for herself when she was 12 do the same thing again. _I'm going up there,_ Mabel thought. _I'm going to march right back up to my dorm room and if I need to wait for Stephanie's family I'll wait, and if Pacifica feels the need to say anything then she can go to hell._

Mabel stepped back inside and walked up the stairs again, breathing easier, taking steadier steps.

\- - - -

It turned out that Mabel didn't have very much to worry about. When she stepped into her hallway, Pacifica wasn't anywhere in sight and the door to Mabel's room was open. She glanced in to see that not only was the room devoid of Stephanie's parents, Stephanie seemed to be sitting on the bed, waiting for her.

When she saw Mabel she stood up. "I'm sorry about that," she said, laughing. "You know how parents are."

Mabel smiled and nodded. "Yeah. I just said goodbye to my mom, like...what, half an hour ago?" She waved her free hand in the air flippantly. "God, it's not like I'm not going to miss her, but the way she was turning on the waterworks..."

Stephanie rolled her eyes and nodded empathetically . "Same. _Totally_ same."

Mabel glanced back at the empty hallway, deliberating for a second on if she should close the door or not. She let her hand rest against the handle and casually pulled it closed a bit so that it was still _open_ , but not _wide_ open. "So, yeah. It's nice to finally meet you in person," she started.

"You too." Stephanie smiled. She paused to clear her throat. "So I know a little bit about you - Facebook and all - but I think we have some ground to cover." She patted her bed. "Would you like to sit?"

"Sure." Mabel took a seat on the foot of Stephanie's bed. "So, what do you need to know?"

Stephanie bit her lip. "Well...let's - I mean, we can start simple.You're from Washington, right?"

Mabel nodded. "And you're from Nevada?"

Stephanie nodded. "Yeah, Nevada."

"Soooo....." Mabel started in a tone she hoped was casual. "What brings you out here to Oregon?" She really didn't want to pry, but ever since Mabel had gotten her room mate assignment and looked Stephanie up on Facebook she had been puzzling over why in God's good name a girl who was probably getting sports scholarship money thrown at her left and right was going to school at a small liberal arts college in the middle of Nowhere, Oregon.

Stephanie folded her arms over her knees. "I don't know, man. For one thing, this place's financial aid was unbeatable."

"Oh," Mabel said, suspecting that wasn't all there was to it.

"And...you know," Stephanie sighed. "I guess I just...I needed to get away from home, you know? I wanted to go somewhere out of state, and this place accepted me, and...yeah."

Mabel nodded, understanding. Then she changed the topic. "So I hear you're from Alamo? Where's that?"

The other girl bit her lip. "Um...it's by Rachel?"

Mabel stared blankly at her. Stephanie lowered her head a little.

"It's like...out by Area 51," she muttered.

Mabel blinked. "No way."

Stephanie didn't say anything.

Mabel started to laugh. " Holy crap! That's _awesome!_ Was that why your dad was wearing that alien t-shirt thing...?" 

Stephanie looked alarmed. "You _saw that_?" she demanded.

"Uh. I just got a glimpse of it, I guess?"

Stephanie buried her face in her hands. "The alien t-shirt thing isn't because we're from Rachel.The alien t-shirt thing is because he is a _total alien nutjob_. That's...that's kind of why we live so close."

Mabel didn't know what else to do, so she feigned a smile. "That's actually kind of cool. I mean...uh..." She faltered for something to say. "Have you ever, like...seen the site? Or pulled some drunken teenage stint to try to chase down a UFO or whatever crap?"

"No. No way, man. Most of the time it's my dad who wants to pull crap like that. I mean..." she paused. "It's like you said. I love my dad to bits, but he's so...over the top sometimes. It's gonna be good to get away for a little while, you know?"

Mabel thought of her own mother's near-breakdown in her dorm room. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess," she said.

"Anyway. That conversation was awkward as hell." Stephanie shifted around on her bed. "Let's change the topic. What do your parents do?"

"My mom works for a steel company. Reception and all that," she answered.

"And your dad?"

This gave Mabel a moment's hesitation. "My dad isn't...I mean. Hell if I know what job my dad is working right now."

It took a few seconds for the realization to dawn on Stephanie's face. "Oh." she said. "Oh my God, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry or anything -"

"No! You're fine. Oh my God, you're fine. Really. I'm okay." Mabel said. "It's been a really long time. You don't have to feel guilty. We can...let's talk about something else."

"Well..." she thought for a second. "Have you met our R.A. yet?"

"Uh...not yet."

Stephanie's eyes lit up. "HOLY CRAP YOU HAVE TO MEET HIM RIGHT NOW!" She grabbed Mabel's arm and yanked her up and off of the bed. "HE'S BRITISH AND AMAZING AND HONESTLY I THINK AM IN LOVE WITH HIS ACCENT OH MY GOD -"

Mabel glanced out into the hallway. _Pacifica is probably out there,_ she thought. For a second, she considered not going out into the dorm hallway.

_Come on, Mabel,_ she told herself. _You can't let that bully run your life anymore._

So she allowed herself to be dragged into the hallway and told herself it didn't matter whether she saw Pacifica or not - but, if she was being honest, she couldn't deny the relief that she felt when she didn't see Pacifica amid the students milling about the hallway.

Mabel couldn't avoid Pacifica forever, but she could sure as hell _try_ to avoid her. And that was something she was willing to give her best show.


	4. Chapter 4

When Mabel opened her eyes at 5:30 the next morning, she nearly gave herself a heart attack. 

It had been a long, restless night. Mabel found herself dreaming an unusual amount; vivid dreams, in color that seemed more real than real life, of her childhood - particularly the summer she had spent in Gravity Falls, which her mind kept going back to again and again; faded dreams, of vaguely familiar faces and names that were on the tip of her tongue, on the verge of being able to fully picture and comprehend them, running back and forth throughout her mind; strange and complicated dreams of places she had never been, and a sky that looked somehow very different from the real one. She found herself tossing, turning, waking up for mere seconds after each dream and blinking before one dream faded into the next.

That was, until she blinked sleepily and saw a figure standing next to her bed.

Mabel bolted upright, the gears in her brain whirring in confusion, prepared to scream at whatever attacker was in her bedroom watching her sleep, until she realized that she was not in her bedroom at home at all, and that the 'figure' was actually Stephanie, in what looked in the dark to be jogging clothes, with an iPod in her hand.

"Oh my God, Mabel!" she whispered. "I am so _so_ sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's - no, it's fine," Mabel mumbled, still not feeling fully awake. Tiredly, she slumped back onto her pillow. "S'okay. You're good."

Mabel stared at the ceiling in the dark and listened to Stephanie's quiet rustling about until, a few minutes later, the rustling moved away and Mabel heard their door gently click shut. She continued staring at the ceiling after Stephanie left. _I would very much like to fall back asleep now,_ she thought, but after thirty minutes of ceiling-staring passed, it became evident that sleep was not going to happen again. Mabel allowed her mind to drift. She thought of back home. She thought of her mom and Dipper. She thought of Grunkle Stan, in his little Mystery Shack, who was probably snoring right now. She tried to remember the dreams that she had, but even then, they were slipping from her mind rapidly.

_Screw this. I need coffee._

Mabel kicked the covers off of her feet and rolled her way onto the floor. Sliding into her flip flops and grabbing her shower caddy, she tried to waddle quietly down the hallway and to the bathrooms at the end. _My first shower in a communal college bathroom,_ she reflected. _Oh boy._

No one else was in the bathroom, which meant that Mabel could use all the hot water she wanted. After she was done washing and shaving, she allowed herself a good five minutes of standing in the water, letting the hot water wash over her, waking her up. She was about to wrap a towel around herself and step out when she pushed the shower curtain aside and saw the profile of an unidentifiable blonde dude standing at the sinks.

She yanked the shower curtain back. _Shit. Right. Coed bathroom._

Quickly, Mabel scrambled into her pajama shorts and tank top. Wrapping her hair in a towel, she took a deep breath and pulled the curtain back again, at which point Mabel realized that a) the dude in question was still there, b) she recognized the dude in question as her RA, and c) from the way that he was smiling at the mirror he had probably seen the entire ordeal. Silently, Mabel thanked herself for having the common sense to wrap a towel around herself initially and squeaked her way on her wet flip flops over to the sink next to him.

"I imagine you saw all that, didn't you?" she asked awkwardly, looking in the mirror.

He laughed a laugh that sounded vaguely British, and Mabel knew that if her roommate were here, she would be swooning. "It's quite alright," he said. "Happens all the time here. That's the beauty of having two genders shower in the same place, I suppose."

"And pee," Mabel added quickly. Her comment received nothing but an awkward stare, so she quickly decided to change the topic. "You're - Michael, right?"

"Indeed I am," he said cheerfully, shaking the water off of his hands. "And you're Mabel. From Gravity Falls! I remember from yesterday."

Yesterday Mabel's roommate had dragged her out into the dorm hallway when Michael was hosting an orientation game (which Mabel was hesitant to go to, harboring a lifelong hatred of orientation games, but Stephanie insisted, and since Pacifica was strangely not present, Mabel didn't have any real reason not to go.) During a tame, non-alcoholic game of 'Never Have I Ever', Mabel had made the mistake of mentioning she had an uncle in Gravity Falls, at which point Michael's eyes lit up (and afterwards Mabel had been forced to participate in a ten minute conversation about aliens and paranormal happenings in Oregon and the location near Gravity Falls is one of the reasons that he had come to Hubbard which undoubtedly had one of the BEST paranormal research groups of any college _in the country_ ), and Mabel had realized that her RA, along with being cute and funny and British, was a huge freaking nerd. (Mabel didn't feel the need to judge him for that, though. Her generally-geekery-tolerance-level had been built up by years of living with Dipper.)

Mabel met her own eyes in the mirror and carefully twisted her hair to wring out some of the water. "Yep. That was me."

"Bit of an odd time for a shower, isn't it?" he asked.

"Oh. Yeah. Couldn't sleep," Mabel said absentmindedly, then glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "Although you seem to be up getting ready at the same time as me."

Michael chuckled. "You will learn, tiny fresher, that the sooner you wake to shower, the better the chances are that the showers have hot water." He frowned at her. "Given that you didn't already use it all up."

"Oh. Sorry," she said quietly, thinking about the five minutes she had let the hot water run. "Wasn't really thinking about that."

He leaned over and gently knocked her on the shoulder. "Just screwing with you, Mabel!" He laughed jovially, but afterward his hand lingered on her shoulder for a solid four seconds longer than it needed to, which made Mabel stop her stoic staring at the mirror to cast a confuse glanced towards him.

He dropped his hand from her shoulder and grinned sheepishly. "I'll be seeing you around, then."

"Yeah." She said, a bit awkwardly. "I'll...be going...yeah."

She barely had time to contemplate the strangeness of the conversation before her stomach rumbled, and she was reminded of the caffeine craving she had gotten when she first woke up.

"God, I need coffee," she whispered to herself, and waddle-squeaked on her wet flip-flops back into her room.

 

\- - -

The only coffee shop on campus (a pathetically tiny little cafe that doubled as the student bookstore) was completely silent when she got there, with not a soul in the store or anywhere outside it. A tiny sign on the window didn't open until 7:30, so by the time that Mabel had pulled on a clean sweater and skirt and made her way to main campus, she still had a good thirty minutes to kill. Classes didn't start for another day or two, so she didn't have any homework yet, which meant her brain automatically flew to thoughts of _I wonder if Dipper is up yet._ After debating for a solid five minutes about whether to bother him - _(He's probably already awake.) (He'll kill me if he's not already awake.) (It's his move-in day today - I shouldn't bother him.) (I look desperate and friendless, texting my brother every single day.) (It is seven in the morning and I have nothing else to do.)_ \- she whipped out her phone.

_hey._

She waited for a solid minute and a half before her phone beeped. _What in the name of all that is good and holy is my sister doing up already._

_i thought you were the early riser of this family?_

_Yeah. And I thought you weren't._

_weird dreams. couldn't sleep. needed coffee. bored._

_So why don't you hang out with one of your brand new Hubbard friends?_

_stephs out for a jog. dunno if i want to talk to michael again._

_Hold up. Who are these people again?_

_roommate and ra (respectively)_

_Don't like your RA, then?_

_thats not the problem. he's the one who likes me._

_?_

_i got a very flirty vibe from him coming out of the showers this morning._

_What? No. Isn't there some sort of law against RAs flirting with their little freshmen?_

_probably, but from the size of his nerd boner when i mentioned gravity falls, i doubt he cares._

_Firstly: EW EW EW I never want to hear that phrase coming from you ever again. Secondly: ? Why would he care about Gravity Falls?_

_apparently people are big into paranormal crap here._

_That's something you must have missed on the brochures._

That made Mabel pause. Dipper was right - it _hadn't_ been mentioned on the brochures. But - Stephanie's dad, Michael's obsession, Pacifica's existence - it seemed like everyone Mabel had met so far had some strange connection to alien-obsession. _Why does this place attract so many freaking weirdos?_

_Wait. Am I a freaking weirdo, too?_

_Oh. Crap. Pacifica. CRAP._

Mabel's fingers paused over they keyboard. Should she even tell Dipper about Pacifica living on her floor? What in God's name could she say? "hey dipper, you know that girl who teased me that one summer with grunkle stan? she's living on my floor and i think i might let it ruin my life." She could not admit that level of wimpiness to her own brother.

But still. He _was_ Dipper, after all. He had understood how much it had hurt when Pacifica made fun of her. Maybe he'd understand again.

She took a deep breath and started typing. _Dipper, I_ -

_"Pines."_

Mabel whipped her head around as quickly as she could. She was certain that she had just heard someone say something. Wide-eyed, she glanced at the front of the cafe, but it was still closed. A quick 360-degree turn revealed the fact that no one had shown up to stand in line with her, either. She relaxed, reasoning that it was nothing more than the wind.

She glanced back at her phone and took a deep breath. _There's something you should -_

_"Mabel Pines."_

Mabel's stomach lurched. There it was again. There was a voice - one she didn't recognize - that was certainly calling her name. It almost didn't sound like it had been spoken aloud - like someone was inside her head - but she had _heard it_. 

"Who's there?" she called tentatively, trying to find any place someone might be hiding - behind a trash can, or the coffee shop building, or in the sparse, small expanse of trees towards the back of campus. "What's going on?" 

Something in one of the trees caught her eye. It looked like it was a leaf - a normal leaf, green, almost ready to turn brown or red or gold in preparation for fall - but it seemed to be _glowing._ Tentatively, Mabel paced towards the tree for a better view.

Hesitantly, she reached toward the glowing leaf. Turning it over so that she could see it better, her breath caught in her throat.

The glow from the leaf was fading, like a dying fire, but she could see that a symbol had been burned into the leaf. One she recognized. It was a triangle - a strange triangle, with one large, strange eye that made the hairs on the back of Mabel's neck prickle. There was a tiny, almost comical bow tie and top hat on the triangle that perhaps, if Mabel had just seen the symbol in passing, would have made her laugh. But Mabel recognized this symbol.

She remembered meeting this triangle before.

Still touching the leaf with one hand, she glanced down at the unfinished message on her phone. As quickly as she could, she deleted everything she had tried to type.

_I have to go. txt you later. soon. i promise._

And Mabel left before she could get coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Has it seriously been a month since I last updated? Wow. I'm super sorry, you guys! Between band camp and regular camp and camping with my family my internet access has been splotchy for the last few weeks, so I apologize. But with school starting up again, I should have time to write when I'm supposed to be paying attention in math class, so updates should be happening a lot more frequently! Thank you for your patience, and I hope you enjoy!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There really is no excuse for not updating in this long. Sorry! Hope this next chapter makes up for it.

"I don't know, Steph. I don't think you have enough notebooks," Mabel said, biting her lip, as Stephanie entered their dorm room carrying 5 different notebooks, each bearing the Hubbard College insignia. 

Stephanie responded by flipping Mabel off and dumping the books in a pile on her bed.

"Made a run to the student bookstore, huh?" Mabel asked. "Must be busy in there."

"Well, it's better than sitting on my butt for the first day of classes at eight in the morning," Stephanie said. "Have you _moved_ at all since I left?"

Mabel had hoped and prayed that the nightmares would cease before her first real day of classes, but they were still there the night before, unsettling as ever, and she had felt so tired that she sat on her bed in her pajama bottoms and a sports bra for a solid thirty minutes while Stephanie bounced in and out of their dorm room, brimming with enthusiasm for the _first real classes of her college career_!

Stephanie was an education major with a concentration in physical education and health instruction, so her first class was called "Intro To Nutrition". It sounded like a total bore to Mabel, but Stephanie seemed weirdly, _weirdly_ excited for it. Mabel knew that her roommate was into sports, but she could not have imagined anyone getting that excited about fruit. 

"Whaaaatever. If you need a notebook for your class, feel free to grab one," Steph said, turning to the mirror and whipping the cap off of her eyeliner. "What is it, exactly, that you're taking? The weird alien and ghost class you were telling me about?"

Mabel rolled her eyes and swung her legs off of her bed. "It's called _'Intro to Modern Folklore and Urban Mythology_ '," she told Steph, dropping her voice an octave and attempting a faux English accent.

"Sounds like a stuck-up way of saying _Alien Nerdology 101_ ," Stephanie observed, staring intently into the mirror.

"Hey. Don't hate. It works for a history credit, and it was more interesting than _An Survey of Agricultural America through the Decades_." Mabel hunted around her bed for a shirt. She found one lying in a heap on her floor, sniffed it to determine if it could pass for clean, and pulled it on over her head.

Upon observing this action, Stephanie set down her eyeliner and turned around to face Mabel. "Oh, dear Lord. Tell me you're not wearing your pajamas to your first class of the year, Pines."

Mabel shrugged. "It's not like it really matters what I wear," she mumbled.

Stephanie glared at her. "Mabel Pines, I _know_ you are nervous about this. Do _not_ act like you are too cool to care." 

Mabel bit her lip. Stephanie was surprisingly good at calling other people's bluffs. In truth, Mabel had been kind of panicking about this whole 'learning' aspect of college since she moved in. Mabel had never been the best student in high school - that was Dipper's job. He was the smart one, not Mabel. But Dipper wasn't here anymore, and the college had given her a crapload of scholarship money. She wondered if that meant the college expected her to actually get good grades? Mabel was terrified, but going down to the financial aid office and asking "Hey, how stupid am I allowed to be to still qualify for your free money?" seemed like the kind of move she should _not_ be making if she wanted to stay in school.

Mabel blinked sleepily and rubbed her eyes. She obviously needed more sleep. Or a brain that wasn't such a piece of shit. 

"I'll change, if that's what makes you happy," Mabel told Stephanie.

Stephanie said nothing, but Mabel caught her grinning smugly to herself in her mirror.

\- - - -

Twenty minutes later, Mabel found herself staring intently at the brick walls of the building her class was in. She had found time to change into one of her signature knit sweaters and a skirt, brush her teeth, comb out her hair, and grab coffee from the crappy machine in the dorm's lobby. She had checked and double checked over the building number, grabbed all the school supply-stuff that she could conceivably need, and arrived at her class ten minutes early. The only mistake she had made, it seemed, had been the 'ten minutes early' part, as the door was locked and she was the only one there -

"Mabel?"

Mabel turned around. 

Pacifica Northwest looked a lot like Mabel remembered her. Her hair was the same shade of blonde she remembered it being, and she was still wearing it long. She still had the same wide, open face, the same tiny frame, the same lips. She was as pretty as ever - but she seemed different. Her makeup was more natural. Her posture was poorer. She was wearing flats instead of heels, which meant that Mabel was a good four inches taller than her, and that instead of Pacifica looking down into Mabel's face, she had to look up.

"Pacifica," Mabel said. Her own voice surprised her with its emotionless when her insides where a whir of confusion and anger and the tiniest bit of buried twelve-year-old heartache and _oh my god oh my god oh my god_

"Are you in this class?" Pacifica asked. "Urban Mythology?"

Mabel nodded. "I...yes. I am," she said carefully, still confused as to why Pacifica was talking to her - here, now, instead of avoiding her, and pretending that she had no idea who Mabel was, like Mabel would have done if the roles were reversed.

They stood in silence for a few awkward, tense moments, Pacifica at an obvious loss words, Mabel not wanting to share anyway. Mabel broke eye contact with Pacifica and decided that the brick wall of the building was really quite a fascinating thing to study.

"Look, Mabel..." Pacifica sighed. 

Mabel didn't respond. 

Pacifica continued. "I know that we haven't seen each other in a while. And I know that when we parted,it...wasn't exactly on the best of terms," Pacifica said.

Mabel blinked incredulously at the wall. She would have scoffed if she had been looking at Pacifica. "And the award for 'Understatement of the Year' goes to..." 

"I'm sorry," Pacifica said timidly.

Mabel snapped her head away from the wall and focused her eyes on Pacifica's. "You make it sound like we were simply the best of friends who got into a fight before I left." She laughed tersely. "You know what, Pacifica? I can't remember you _ever_ being nice to me. Not _once_."

Pacifica hugged her books closer to her chest and stared at her shoes. "I'm so sorry," she repeated, even more softly this time.

Mabel furrowed her brows and shook her head, searching for the right words to say. "Why are you doing this?" 

Pacifica continued to stare at her shoes for a long time, as if she could draw courage from them before she looked up. "Mabel, I'm not proud of the person I used to be when I was a kid. You need to know that I am so -"

"You're here early, ladies!" A voice called. 

Mabel and Pacifica turned their heads at the same time to see a man approaching - short, grey-bearded, dressed in very professor-ish attire, carrying door keys. He smiled at them as he pushed his way in between them to get to the door. "This your first class of the year?"

"Yeah!" Pacifica said, nodding and smiling intently. Mabel turned her head away, not wanting to look at her.

The man jabbed a key into the lock and fumbled with it. "I'm Professor Wallace. You're going to have so much fun this year," he said, and pushed the door open for them.

\- - - -

Professor Wallace flicked the lights on, and Mabel and Pacifica followed awkwardly behind him, like baby ducks tailing their mother. A few minutes passed, and people started to fill up the classroom. Mabel made sure to sit as far away from Pacifica as possible, and did her very best not to look back at her but she could still feel Pacifica watching her.

The clock struck nine, and Professor Wallace gave the class a very warm, enthusiastic welcome. Mabel tried to pay attention as he wrote his name on the board and started to hand out the syllabus, but she couldn't focus for the entire class. No matter what the teacher was doing, Mabel couldn't shake the feeling that Pacifica's eyes were on her the entire time.


	6. Chapter 6

With slight, numb terror, Mabel slowly realized she couldn't move.

The earth beneath Mabel felt cold and wet. She could feel mud seeping into her socks, into her sweater, into her hair. She could feel the dirt on her eyelids, her cheeks, over her lips - all over her body. _Maybe this is what being buried alive feels like,_ she thought numbly. _Cold, and wet, and dirty._

Her neck was frozen and immobile, just like the rest of her. Her head was facing upwards, and she could see the night sky above her, fringed by the tops of trees on the edges of her vision. The stars were vast and numerous, like they were when you traveled to the countryside, and the moon seemed larger than life. She kept her eyes focused on it as she worked her hardest at breathing.

Her chest rose and fell as she took shaky breaths in, shaky breaths out, coughing, gagging, gasping all the while. The dirt had started to fall into her mouth a long time ago, and now her body was working overtime trying to expel the dirt from her lungs, trying to defrost whatever poison was paralyzing her as it coursed through her veins, trying to do what bodies are put on earth to do - stay alive.

"Oh, no. Sweetheart." Mabel heard a voice purr.

When she gasped involuntarily, she could feel more of the dirt and mud falling into her lungs, and her vision blurred with tears as she frantically tried to cough it out, tried to breathe in real air, tried to do anything. The voice laughed deeply as she struggled.

"Is this hard for you, Mabel?" She couldn't tell if the voice was male or female, old or young, what country its speaker might belong to, if it belonged to a human speaker at all. It seemed everywhere and nowhere all at once, and it made Mabel's heart beat faster and the air she was breathing colder. She couldn't move her body, but she didn't have to see the speaker to know the voice belonged to something evil. "Poor, dear girl," they laughed. "I'm afraid staying alive isn't much of a possibility for you any more."

Dimly, Mabel wondered if she could try to speak up, but decided against it, breathing causing as much difficulty as it was. She did her best to focus on breathing as the voice continued.

"My dear, _dear_ Mabel." There was a rustling, and a snapping of twigs, and then Mabel heard footsteps coming towards her.

She felt lips press against her ear, but she was powerless to turn her head, to kick her attacker, even to spit in their direction. She felt a smile full of malice creep across the lips of her assailant, and when they spoke, the words vibrated in every bone in Mabel's body, shutting down her ability to see, to think, to process, like an electric shock through her body.

_"This is what happens when you know too much."_

 

Mabel bolted upright in her bed, panting.

It took a few seconds for reality to kick in again. Mabel slowly realized that she was sitting in her bed, with the lights on and the door shut tight, all alone and completely safe. Also, as she found out when she slowly stopped hyperventilating, her lungs were working just fine.

Mabel pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and glanced at the clock. _2:30 P.M._. She sighed and glanced out the window.

It was a gorgeous Saturday afternoon. The sun was bright but not blinding and warm but not hot, and the air was cool and breathable. Leaves were starting to tinge red and orange yellow, as if to say that summer wasn't over but fall was on its way, and for now the campus and the world existed in between the seasons. Students sat out on the quad, walked on the sidewalks, listening to music, doing school work, talking to friends.

_Screw them,_ Mabel thought, and got out of bed to yank down the blinds. _How dare they be happy and productive students on a day like this._

Mabel had been at Hubbard for two weeks, and, if she was being honest with herself, things were going to shit. There was the Pacifica problem to deal with. There was all the homework that she should be doing. There was the fact that she hadn't gotten a text from Dipper in about a week. And then there were the nightmares. 

The nightmares had started when she came to Oregon and had been getting progressively worse and worse the longer she stayed there. They started out innocently enough - weird patterns and shapes, strange voices talking in foreign tongues, things that made her shift about in her sleep. And then they got worse. Dreams where Mabel was sprinting down a hall full of deformed creatures and gruesome monsters hell-bent on killing her. Dreams where she was lost in the forest, and no matter where she ran the trees seemed to get closer together like they wanted to swallow her whole, and she could hear someone cackling. And then dreams like the last one.

The dreams made it hard to sleep. They made it hard to wake up in the morning and go to class. They made it hard to finish her homework. Hell, they made it hard to nap (like she had been trying to do that afternoon, like a sensible college student).

Mabel frowned to herself. She didn't know much about the 'American college experience' she should be having, but she assumed that it shouldn't include being so plauged by nightmares you felt like you were unable to function.

She plopped back down on her bed, wondering what to do next. She felt like shit, but she knew sitting in her room and isolating herself from human contact would just make her feel worse. Further napping was out of the question. She knew she could have done her homework...

Her eyes fell on the phone resting by her pillow. _Orrrr...I could talk to Dipper._

She grabbed the phone and hit Dipper's name in her contacts list. She took a nervous breath and lifted the phone to her ears. 

Mabel didn't know what to think about the whole Dipper situation. They hadn't talked to each other in over a week - which was a good thing, because it meant both of them were making new friends and didn't feel the need to be talking to their twin constantly on the phone. On the other hand...she didn't know the last time she had gone a week without talking to Dipper. She missed him like crazy -

"Hello?" Mabel heard one of her favorite stupid, nerdy voices in the world ask.

Mabel beamed. "Heyyyyy, Dipper! What are you up to? This a good time?"

"Um, sure. Just studying."

Mabel snorted. "It's been two weeks into classes, Dip. You are such a _bore_."

"Yeah, yeah, Mabel. Is there a reason you're calling...?"

"I just kind of wanted to talk to you. I miss you."

"Well, that's sappy."

"Shut it. Anyway, how are you liking college life?"

"It's good! Yeah, it's good, Mabel."

"Make any new friends?"

"Yeah, a few."

"Have you made any.... _special_ friends?" Mabel teased.

"Ew, Mabel. Shut up." Dipper paused. "Have _you_ made any special friends? Aside from your RA, of course."

Mabel hoped Dipper could tell she was rolling her eyes through the phone. "For God's sake, Dipper, there's nothing between me and him."

"That's not how you were telling it the other day."

"Seriously, Dipper, fu -"

Mabel was prepared to start cursing her brother out, but she was cut off abruptly by a knock on the door, and then a very British voice. "Mabel?"

"This call is getting put on hold," Mabel breathed into the phone. She pulled her phone away from her ear. "It's open!" she called.

The door opened, and Michael poked his head into the door. When he saw Mabel, his face lit up. "Hey there, Mabel!" he beamed.

Mabel did her best to return his smile. "Uh...hey."

"Mind if I come in?" he asked. Mabel hesitated.

"I'll be quick," he added. 

"Come on in," Mabel said. Michael opened the door and sat on Mabel's bed, which made her raise her eyebrows for a brief second before she realized he had left the door open behind him. Sighing with relief, she glanced back at him. "What's up?"

Michael blinked, then waved his hand in the air absentmindedly. "Oh, nothing. Just thought I'd drop in and check how college life is going for you and Stephanie."

"It's going good," Mabel lied automatically. "Everything's good."

"I'm glad to hear that." Michael smiled. "Meet many new people? Join any clubs?"

"Uh..." _Crap._ Mabel wanted to get more involved on campus, she really did, but the whole 'vivid night terrors' thing made it kind of hard to focus on much else. "Not really."

Michael's mouth twitched. "That's a shame. Tell you what-" He glanced out into the hallway. "There's going to be a party tonight at South Hall. A friend of mine is throwing it. I think you should go. It's at ten."

Mabel blinked. "I don't know, I'm not really -" she started, but midway through her sentence, she realized that her phone was still sitting in her lap, and that if she said no, Dipper might hear her.

"I'll see if I can make it," Mabel said weakly.

Michael smiled at her and bounced out of the room. Mabel lifted the phone to her ear again.

"Was that your-?" Dipper started.

"Go screw yourself," Mabel said, and hung up before he could finish his sentence.


	7. Chapter 7

Mabel didn't want to like Professor Wallace at first. She also didn't want to like Urban Mythology. After the first disastrous meeting of the class and her encounter with Pacifica, Mabel walked away from the class's first meeting dead-set on dropping it from her schedule. She soon found out, however, that all the other courses she could take to fill Urban Mythology's spot were either full or taught about subject matters that ranged from the boring (Woodworking and Craftsmanship 101) to the painful (Advanced Statistics), and she didn't know how else she'd make up the history credit. So, she bodly pressed on.

Pressing on actually proved to be one of the better decisions Mabel had made since she arrived at Hubbard College, as Urban Mythology was quickly becoming her favorite class, and Professor Wallace was quickly becoming her favorite teacher. She knew it was a 100-level 'Intro' course, but Wallace didn't seem angry or annoyed with teaching a bunch of awkward college freshmen. He treated them like honest-to-God intellectuals - even _Mabel_. There was a shitload of reading and coursework, but it was all completely fascinating - like reading creepy Wikipedia articles. And, as someone who had been dealing in 'off the wall weird' all of her life, the thing Mabel loved the most was that Wallace's specialty was explaining the origins of 'off the wall weird'.

"I've said it before and I'll say it again - in this class, I don't aim to teach you whether these legends are real," Wallace said as he paced around the front of the classroom, clicking through pictures of mythological beasts of old and new on his slideshow. "What I want you to understand is what they are and why people believe in them. We humans like to think of ourselves as a rational species. But with rationality - the ability to choose what is a danger to us and what is not - comes fear, and an ability to comprehend the fact there are many things we don't know." He paused. "All cultures and time periods have different beasts that have plagued them, different superstitions they have adhered too, but every single civilization shares one thing in common - each group of people has its own beliefs and superstitions."

"And that leads me to our first real project of the semester!" Professor Wallace exclaimed, setting down his PowerPoint clicker. He clapped his hands together with enthusiasm. "Here at Hubbard, we have students that come from all different backgrounds and walks of life. I want to know about the legends and traditions you and your family members believe in and honor. How has the culture you hail from, the place you live, the environment in which you grew up shaped these beliefs? That's what I'm interested in."

"A lot of students complain when I assign this every year. They say things like, 'Wallace, I can't do this. I'm an American kid from the suburbs. My family is whiter than white bread. My parents are both atheists and scientists. What am I supposed to write about?' If you need individual help, you can see me during my office hours and we can figure something out together, but I will say this - every person, no matter how 'traditional' they pride themselves on being, has a personal story to tell about urban mythology. Tell me about the time you were 5 and you thought you saw a ghost. Tell me about the fortune teller who lived down the street who your parents hated, but you thought was the real deal. Hell, tell me about watching _Ghost Adventurers_ with your friends and mocking it mercilessly." 

Professor Wallace glanced at his watch. "Well, I do believe that's all the time we have for today. Your papers are to be 4 to 6 pages long, in the format discussed on the syllabus, due next week Wednesday. If you have any questions, or just want to drop in and chat, catch me during my office hours." He stood up. "Now go and have fun!" he called.

Mabel rolled her eyes and pulled her bookbag up to her shoulder. _Fun_ , she thought. Mabel already had more homework than she could ever remember having in high school - well. More homework than she could ever remember _finishing_ in high school. 

As she stepped out of the lecture hall into the chilly fall afternoon, Mabel took her phone out of her pocket and turned it on. No one usually texted her during Wallace's class, so she was surprised to find that someone had sent her a message. When she tapped the message button, her conversation with Michael was lit up. _Michael?_ Mabel thought. _When the hell did I give him my number...oh._

Mabel hadn't really gotten that far into the party scene at Hubbard. Part of it was because she didn't enjoy partying as much as she thought she would - there were enough problems that came with waking up in the morning without adding a hangover to the mix, and Mabel didn't want to know what the drugs she saw other students offering would do to her nightmare problem. The other part of it was that no matter where Mabel went out on the weekends, she seemed to run into someone she didn't want to talk to. She vaguely remembered bumping into Michael last weekend, and she had an even vaguer memory of writing her number on his arm in Sharpie...

_Where the hell did I get a Sharpie?_ ,Mabel wondered, right before she asked herself the more important question of _Why the hell did I give him my number?_ She shook her head and clicked on the message, which had only been sent five minutes ago.

_Hello Mabel! What are you up to?_

Mabel sighed as she typed back a response. _just getting out of class._

_Good to hear! Are you finished with classes for the day?_

_yeah, I was just going to go to the library and get some work done before dinner.._

_That sounds...responsible! :) Are you in need of a study buddy, perhaps?_

Mabel raised her eyebrows. She knew that Michael liked her, which was...something, but he had always seemed a bit hesitant about going for it. He had evidently shed his inhibitions since the last time Mabel talked to him...which would've been that weekend. _God, what else did I do besides write my number on his arm? Why can't I remember any of this?_

Mabel stared at her thumbs as she weighed her options. On one hand, if she had done something to lead Michael on that weekend that she couldn't remember, inviting him to be her study buddy could possibly be a bad idea if Mabel wasn't actually sure what she wanted from Michael. On the other hand...Michael was nice. A tad geeky, yeah, but he was cute, and he had an accent. Mabel didn't want Michael to think of her as a cold-hearted bitch.

She sent him back a noncommittal _if you want to, sure_ and started the trek to the library.

~ 

Michael was waiting for her when she got to the library commons. He was sitting at a small table, textbook open out in front of him. When he saw Mabel, he gave her a tiny wave and closed the book. As he walked over to her, she noticed he was wearing a 'The X Files' inspired t-shirt, with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson's faces and the words "The truth is out there" and "I want to believe" printed on it. His hair was messed up, like he had just ran a hand through it. Messy hair was something that was cute. Mabel tried to focus on his hair as he walked up to her.

He gave her a smile that was somehow big and shy at the same time. "Hi," he said in a library voice.

Mabel gave a tiny smile back. "Hello," she said, as quietly as she could. 

They stood there in awkward silence for a few beats, and then Michael looked down at his feet. "We should take this somewhere people aren't trying to work," he said. "I know just the place."

Mabel nodded and followed him as he ascended the staircase and navigated through mostly empty rooms. _The people at this school are sure dedicated to studying,_ she observed quietly to herself.

"So, what are you working on today?" Michael asked her as they walked. 

"Um, I have a Calc thing to study for...and a paper I want to start on for my Urban Mythology class," Mabel recalled. Michael nodded. "You?" she asked.

He looked surprised that she had asked for a brief second. "Oh, you know, just...English," he shrugged. 

Mabel glanced at his textbook and saw that the front cover said _Ancient World History_. Mabel opened her mouth to ask about that, but Michael cut her off. "Uh, this is it!" he said.

Mabel looked around at the tiny, deserted corner of the library Michael had brought her to, with a lone table tucked away behind the stacks of books. "This is the 000s of the nonfiction section. Local history and reference. Hardly anyone ever comes back here," he explained. He glanced over his shoulder. "I have to go get a pencil. Wait here for me?" he asked.

"Sure." Mabel said, and Michael took off.

Mabel poked her head inside the rows and rows of bookshelves. Michael had said the section contained local history. She wondered if it would have any information on paranormal stuff in Oregon, or in the Northwest in general. Mabel walked up and down the rows, scanning the titles for a mention of something supernatural, when something hung on the wall over the table caught her eye. Mabel glanced at it.

She gasped involuntarily.

It was a painting of a clearing in the woods. The artist had painted night time, but the light of the moon and stars still clearly illuminated the trees and the muddy earth, and Mabel could see that there seemed to be a hole - not a hole created by nature, a hole dug with a shovel, or with someone's bare hands - in the middle of the clearing, partially filled with water. The artist's perspective made it a bit hard to tell the hole's dimensions, but Mabel knew that it must've been a few inches deep and five-and-a-half feet. The perfect size for a human to lie in.

To a casual passerby in the library, the painting might have seemed weird, just because it was an odd subject to paint. But Mabel knew instantly - she didn't know how, but she _knew_ \- that the clearing was the one from the dream were she was buried alive.

"Mabel?" a voice said.

Mabel's hands flew to her face to stifle her scream. She spun around in a panic to find a very confused Michael standing in front of her, pencil in hand. "Mabel, are you -" he started, but before he could finish, Mabel threw her arms around him and buried her face in his chest, shaking. 

The nightmares never stopped. Not even in real life.

She didn't know how long she clung to him before she felt her chin being gently pried away from his body. Michael cupped her face in his hands, and Mabel looked up into his face.

They said nothing for a few short moments. Then, Mabel heard an almost inaudible gasp.

It took her a second to pry her face out of Michael's soft grip, but when Mabel turned her head, she recognized the flash of pale blond hair and the slim build of the girl that was turned from her, running away. 

"Pacifica," Mabel whispered to herself.

"Do you know that -" Michael started, and then stopped. "She's from our floor, isn't she?" he questioned.

Mabel didn't say anything. "I'm going to go after her," he said, and Michael started off after Pacifica. Mabel didn't make a noise as she turned, walked back to the table, sat down, and hugged her knees into her chest, doing her very best not to look at the picture.


End file.
